Becoming Matisse

On the 150th anniversary of the painter Henri Matisse (1869-1954), the Musée Matisse in Cateau-Cambresis, which was founded by the artist in his hometown in 1952, pays tribute to the lesser-known man of the North, who became one of the greatest masters of the 20th century.

You thought you knew everything about Matisse’s work? This exhibition reveals the mystery of the first 20 years of his career and the awakening of a genius moving from shadow to light. It honours his early works from the revelation of painting, and his academic training until the end of his academic studies in Paris, where he taught until 1911.

This decisive and defining period of his identity helps us to understand how he grew into a painter on his Hauts-de-France lands. It dissects the creative process of the man copying the ancients, drawing inspiration from the greatest masters of the past and his contemporaries, to shake the codes with ‘luxury, calm and voluptuousness’ and impose himself on the rank of those he has contemplated.

Text in English and French.